Celtics lose Sullinger for the season

Five days after learning Rajon Rondo would miss the remainder of the regular season with a torn ACL, the Celtics found out that promising rookie Jared Sullinger was done for the year as well, with a back injury.

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By
TIM BRITTON
Posted Feb. 1, 2013 @ 7:54 pm

BOSTON — The Celtics haven’t lost a game yet this week. It sure doesn’t feel that way, though.

Five days after learning Rajon Rondo would miss the remainder of the regular season with a torn ACL, the Celtics found out that promising rookie Jared Sullinger was done for the year as well, with a back injury. Sullinger underwent season-ending surgery to repair a lumbar disc on Friday.

He is expected to be ready for training camp.

For the second time this week, head coach Doc Rivers had to circle the Celtics’ wagons after some disheartening news.

“I told them after shootaround, our goals haven’t changed. Nothing’s changed,” Rivers said Friday. “We will have to play differently again.”

Sullinger had been bothered by back pain over the last two weeks, but he told trainer Eddie Lacerte that he had felt better prior to Wednesday’s game against the Kings. Four minutes into that contest, however, he departed with back spasms.

The Celtics had hoped Sullinger would be day-to-day.

That changed on Thursday, with the team deciding the injury required surgery.

Concerns about Sullinger’s back led to the talented forward’s slide in last June’s draft, all the way down to Boston’s slot at 21. Even with some of those concerns now justified with this injury, Rivers said the Celtics are glad they took Sullinger in spite of those warnings.

“We knew this could happen. We knew it a month before the draft that this could happen and at some point it probably would happen,” Rivers said of such a surgery.

“We were hoping it could be a summer thing rather than the middle of the season. It happened now. He was playing great. The good news is we know he can play and we know he’ll be a very good player. In the long run, this will make him healthier.”

Rivers said this should fix Sullinger’s back issues, in so much as a back can ever really be fixed.

Although Sullinger was not as integral a part of the Celtics as Rondo, his loss is significant. Sullinger had just entered the starting lineup last Sunday because of a string of solid efforts. His presence as a rebounder was especially important for a team that has struggled in that department all season.

Boston doesn’t have a lot of depth in the frontcourt, either. With Sullinger out, Brandon Bass will move back into the starting lineup. The frontcourt reserves are now Chris Wilcox, Jason Collins and Fab Melo. Melo was just recalled from the Maine RedClaws of the NBDL.

“We’re still working on what we have to do, but we’ll definitely be a small-ball team,” said Rivers. “We’ll start big as usual with Brandon and Kevin [Garnett]. After that, we just have to put our five best players on the floor. We’re going to have to be creative.”

That creativity is going to center on the versatility of forwards Paul Pierce and Jeff Green. It appears as if the Celtics’ best five-man lineup includes Pierce and Green in the frontcourt alongside Garnett. Already asked to help shoulder the ball-handling load in Rondo’s absence, Pierce and Green will also have to guard some opposing power forwards in the post now.

“The season continues. Guys just have to step up,” said Green, essentially echoing what the Celtics have been saying about Rondo since Sunday. “I still feel strong about our chances. We still have what it takes.”

“Everybody’s going to have to rebound,” Rivers said. “The guy I’m going to put the most pressure on, which is a little unfair because he’s never been a great rebounder, is Jeff. When he’s in, he’s going to have to rebound. That’s what we have to do.”

Sullinger’s injury made for another sober Celtics huddle Friday morning. But it also paved the way for the team to showcase its resilience — again.

“When he broke that news to us, it was another one of those moments where it’s like, ‘Man, it can’t get any worse than this,’ ” guard Courtney Lee said. “We want to stay positive with it. … Everybody else can write us off, but the guys in here can’t write each other off. We have to go out there and continue to fight.”

Asked if he was worried about someone else going down this week, Lee chuckled — and knocked on wood.

“We don’t want anybody else to be next,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure everybody gets treatment and ice after the game. We need everybody else now.”